


Traveler of Crazy

by Toyu



Series: Crazy Travels - The Unwelcome Guest [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Ookami to Koushinryou | Spice and Wolf
Genre: Be Careful What You Wish For, Crazy, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Multi, Other, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-05-08 03:18:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14685342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toyu/pseuds/Toyu
Summary: A lover of stories from a young age, in her mid-twenties, a woman makes a contract with the one she has labeled as enemy, turning herself into a magical girl. With only foreknowledge of the places she may be dumped into, the traveler and her furred companion set out on a whirlwind of adventures, however, with no way of telling where, or when, or with whom she'll end up with in each place, the butterfly effect, murphy's law, and mental instability are sure to occur around her. She only hopes that she'll end up in This Bites, with more luck than AdmiralTigerclaw had or has in his own multi-dimensional trip...





	1. The Beginning, without Ramifications

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AdmiralTigerclaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdmiralTigerclaw/gifts), [Xomniac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xomniac/gifts), [esama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/gifts), [The_Moss_Stomper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Moss_Stomper/gifts).
  * Inspired by [This Bites!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4833515) by [Xomniac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xomniac/pseuds/Xomniac). 
  * Inspired by [Sleeping with the Girls: Fictional Reality](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8839309) by [AdmiralTigerclaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdmiralTigerclaw/pseuds/AdmiralTigerclaw). 
  * Inspired by [The Unwelcome Guest](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5623807) by [The_Moss_Stomper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Moss_Stomper/pseuds/The_Moss_Stomper). 



Slabs of broken concrete are briefly illuminated in a purple flash of light as the black-haired glasses-less girl vanishes, the rain still falling from the sunlit-clouds above. I sharply inhale, tasting gas from unseen broken pipes in addition to the water saturated air. This taste, the fact that I could sense and feel the weight of my body, which normally had that weightlessness that accompanied dreams, and the fact that everything was blurry around the rims of my glasses, told me something I did not want to believe. I grinned as a line from my favorite story enters my mind, a line that was only partially applicable to the current situation.

_When you kill, you either live on in a dream, or go insane._

     I shiver a bit, whether from excitement or fear as to what I knew the only way events would progress from this point on, I could not tell. Or maybe I was shivering due to the freezing water that I was now soaked in, my tennis shoes currently more relatable to a sponge than actual shoes with the amount stuck in them. I shuddered before shuffling my way over to the largest rock I could see as the rain began to increase in its downpour, making a fine mist that layered everything with a tinge of shadow. And sitting there on the very rock I was heading towards, was a familiar shadow around which the mist parted, revealing a really familiar white furred creature about the size of a normal cat or rabbit, or a very large rat, which was rather accurate with what I knew of the alien’s personality. The creature known as a Incubator sat there, calmly licking its paw and wiping it over the red part of its long ears, either ignoring me or attempting to deceive me with the so-called cute innocent action.

    The two-tailed Incubator continues with its action of wiping a licked paw over its oddly patterned ear as I stepped out of the water onto a nearby slab of concrete. I frowned briefly at the evil furball’s continued ignorance of my presence before a splitting grin spread its way across my face. Naw, I couldn’t stay truly one hundred percent mad at the soul stealing furball, especially not with what I’m about to do.

“Hey Cueball, erm, Kyubey, argh no, Incubator!”

     Urgh that was bad, but my words got what they intended done: the Incubator pausing mid-swipe as it opens one crimson eye to glance my way. That same eye flashes briefly as the light from the clouds above moves over it, then, a voice deeper but still just as monotone as its anime counterpart reverberates through my head.

_Yes?_

     I stepped forward to the concrete’s edge, the water lapping less than a inch away as I held eye contact with the fluffball of despair-consuming, fluff... Hey, I could say with certainty in the moment of thinking my wish to the cat-rabbit-rat-hybrid with a uterus shaped head —meh, lets settle on ‘alien’ for now— that I am the self-proclaimed most craziest person in my normal family. Heck, make that the universe, especially knowing the contract’s fine print beforehand and still going through with it. The alien lowers his paw, thinking over the ramifications and possibilities of my wish being fulfilled. With its two tails flicking back and forth in a cat-like manner, it dips its head with a single phrase that often preluded many adventures and battles.

_It can be done. However—_

     My breath hitched, my mind filled with the childhood wonder and excitement of a unknown story, no, _world_ , —well, multiple stories or worlds in this case— mixed with the desire to explore while experiencing the unknown once again. I crouched before Kyubey, my hazel eyes now level with its own crimson ones. I spoke, my voice failing to hide any of my excitement in its babbling.

     “However, due to the karmic fluctuations of my wish affecting multiple worlds and people that live, breath, eat, sleep, —you know, _Live_ , — in them, you have no clue what my power level as a mahou shoujo, magical girl, or as you like to call them, ‘puella magi’ would be, right?”

     The Incubator dips his head with a slow blink, giving me a soft final thought before its ears reached out to me, a grey glow emitting from my chest.

_That is correct. Regardless, the possibilities you have presented with such a wish, would aid many people and the universe as a whole. The contract…_

Its blinks the same pair of innocent-only-in-appearance eyes a second time before finishing the telepathic sentence.

_...is now complete._

     As the morning mist shrouded us, the grey light grew brighter than actual sunlight, causing my eyes to smart from the glare, so I squeezed them both shut, my hands moving upward to grasp the light’s source. A burst of darkness against my closed eyelids, something solid plopping into my hands, a weight not unlike that of a cat or dog settling on my shoulder as with a loud pop, the two of us were displaced into the realm of both unknown and known.


	2. First Story: Green Skies above, Magic below, Where to go?  – Unknown Canon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I awaken in a unfamiliar place, and even the weather is not as it seems...

     The first thing that tipped me off that I was no longer in Walpurgist destroyed Tokyo was the lack of waves lapping in my ears, and the blast of pure stench that smelled _worse_ than sewer gas burning my nostrils. Gagging, I slowly open my eyes and blink in confusion at the grey, near-silver gem in my hands that looked in no way like a normal Soul Gem.

     Regardless of the fiction or canon era the story happens to be set in, most Soul Gems were round in an egg-shape and had a gold or other metallic band that went around it in a cage-shape, otherwise they appeared as various types of jewelry or weapon decoration. Mine was nowhere near any of that, if it being a rombus shaped crystal imbedded in what seemed to be bronze or some other near-copper plate that only went around one flat side of the gem was anything to go by. My surroundings also gave me a sense of unease and wrongness, the metallic alleyway walls covered in a layer of grime mixed with splatters of rust, the faintly glowing puddles that were not purely water casing disturbing shadows on the trash that littered the ground. The too-close face I saw when I looked to my left made my heart leap into my throat as the Incubator also jumped, landing on a pile of papers and cardboard before resuming its paw-wash in a bored manner. I shake my head at it as I returned my eyes to the faintly glowing gem.

     Despite the physical weight of said gem, the defiant shift in shading and drastic scenery change to that of a dirty alleyway, it didn’t feel real, my mind not quite fully accepting what had just occurred as reality. Which, from what I knew of myself, was acceptable seeing as how I often dreamed of doing exactly this: traveling in stories, aiding my favorite characters, and just having fun. In other words, my mind accepted such events as fictional dreams, and that was no longer the case. I glance up from the Gem that literally housed my soul, as the unmistakable sound of a train whistle blasted through the green tinted, cloud filled sky above. Wait…

Green Tinted Sky?!

     My breath hitched as I stared upwards, my eyes widening in shock, as my reality fried mind went to the only realistic explanation for a wall cloud in that color, all due to a little bit of advice from my father, who grew up in Illinois.

     A sky that was made of green clouds in that shade, meant tornados.

     Heart pounding, I let out several curses that would have taken a bubble bath just to washout my foul mouth as I spin around, the excitement all to readily replaced with nerve-wracking fear. I start running towards the alleyway end as my feet splash through several puddles, the movement of human figures told me it was a street of some sort. My shoulder objected with a small ache of pain as I stopped at the mouth of the alleyway, looking both ways at the throngs of suspiciously oblivious people moving without a care of the oncoming danger. That’s when I noticed the lack of sirens going off and relaxed by a slim margin with another upward glance at the ominous clouds above.

“Get a grip,” I chided myself as I steadily made my way through the crowd, bumping shoulders and arms with other people traveling in both directions. “Its not like a tornado has touched down yet…”

     And there lied the problem, it was a matter of time before a destructive natural disaster struck wherever the frick frack my magic dumped me, and I have no ideas as far as countering such a thing. I shake my head and push my way through the well-dressed crowd of people, having spotted what appeared to be an underground railroad entrance across the street. There were no words above the entryway, just a wooden sign shaped like rail tracks to show what the descending hole in the wall’s purpose was. Someone bumped me from behind as my eyes caught the flash of something small and shiny several steps below, my hand reaching for the object as I tumble forward into the semi-darkness.

    I knew, even as I squeeze my eyes shut and brace for the pain as my hand closed around what felt like a nugget bolt often found in tool boxes, that this was going to be a painful journey. By some miracle while I was going head-over-heels down the steps I avoided hitting anyone as the people around me were giving me a wider berth than before. I landed in a heap of limbs, with both kneecaps and knuckles burning from fresh scraps and a suddenly bloodstained palm that I had stupidly reached out to brace against the concrete floor at the bottom of the stairs. Ow ow, OW, dear sweet mother of—!

     “Fuck!” I half-yelp in a snarl at the shot of pure pain screeching its way up my right arm’s nervous system and into my brain from my freshly bleeding palm. I _hated_ pain of any sort, in particular the physical kind that came with a hairbrush and tangles, or the unexpected kind of pain that occurred in life, like just now. I let out a small hiss when the wound on my palm began to start the first of many throbbing pain waves from the bleeding area. That was both good and bad, I reminded myself with tears streaming down my face as I stood up and shuffled my way to the short line where people seemed to be getting tickets from the counter’s teller. Good, as it meant the wound was shallow, bad, as owie, it meant more of the nervous system was directly exposed to air, thus more pain.

     By the time I reached the ticket teller, I could tell that the object I had picked up was a coin of some sort, it looked like a stereotypical yen coin, with it being a circle with a square hole in the middle. I knew what it was worth due to the number one hundred on both sides of the coin, any other writing either illegible or unknown as I couldn’t recognize the raised kanji or nearly fully-rubbed-off hiragana underneath the number on the other side of the hole. My scrapped knuckles had by then stopped hurting, my kneecaps were just turning the color of fresh bruises with the corresponding amount of pain, while the bleeding scrap had only intensified with both pain and blood. The underside of my wrist is covered in a smear of blood from my unsuccessful attempts to wipe it off with my dark blue pants and the green sleeves of my short-sleeved shirt. Most of what the teller said to me went in one ear and out the other as I told him to give me a ticket for the area furthest from where I was and handing him the coin. The change I received told me two things with his parting words, what the local currency was and narrowing my current location to approximately under one hundred twenty-five possibilities.

     “Your change is eighty-nine gil, ma’am.”

      Numbly, I walked towards the train, the coins clinking in my hands with a rhythmic clank clink clank as I shifted them about. When the train doors closed behind me, I glanced downward as something brushes past my legs. It was the Incubator, it looks over its shoulder as it trots forward bit before stopping while staring at me.

_You look as if you’ve discovered something of interest. Care to share?_

     I focused on breathing several times to get a grip on my emotions and voice, but the tremor of fear still made it across both my verbal and telepathic reply.

    “Yeh… Yeah.” _We’re in the general canon of a Final Fantasy story, and the only one that fits the bill with my surroundings—_

     With an ear-piercing howl of the train’s whistle, the modern machine moves out of the station into an unfamiliar, orderly mess of black suspension bridges and roads. I make my way over to the stereotypical leather seats and lean my head against the widow, staring out at the green sky that was not caused by natural weather, but by the city’s sheer light pollution and chemical emissions.

_— is Final Fantasy VII, in particular, the city of Midgar._

    Now it was a matter of finding out which Final Fantasy Story I was in, canon or otherwise, known to me or possibly unknown. Two stories in particular I removed from this list immediately simply due to my current location while working under the hypothesis that first, my magic had dumped me in an active, ongoing story that I knew of, and second, it had placed me where the story would in some way take place. The two stories were Esama’s wing fic, removed due to the lack of wings on everyone’s backs, and a story that I could only recall was a Reno x Yuffie fic that centered around Wutai motorbike gangs and Rude’s impeccable umbrella-wielding skills. Regardless of which of the many Final fantasy VII stories I was dumped in, I needed a steady income, and that meant following in a certain yellow-haired time-traveler’s footsteps, or more specifically, the paraphrased story passage that had just leapt into my mind.

_Cloud worked up a steady income, selling the vials of drained ghost fluid to the shop keeper, the butchered monster corpse meat to the butchers shop further down the street…_

     I closed my eyes, allowing the train’s rocking to lull me into a light slumber. Unbeknownst to me, a woman cries out in pain from within the depths of Shinra’s laboratories as raw mako scalds her back from the shower heads. She weakly pounds on the doorway to her prison, slowly lowering her arms and her body to shiver in the fetal position from the toils of time and mako wearing out both body and spirit. The burning cascade of mako turns to a slow drip when the door opens, and people she is too familiar with enter and drag her out, not for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang, poor Tess, I feel sorry for her.  
> The stories referenced in here are real stories that can be found on A03, just look for Reno x Yuffie tag and add Rude as a character for the motorbike gang one, and the other unnamed one I can only remember as a cloud strife time travel fic that had him gathering monster parts as a source of income the moment he time-traveled back into past Midgar. (Anyone know the name of it?)  
> More comments or criticisms = more encouragement and incisive to write in general!


	3. The Vixen Merchant of Wolfish Desires – Final Fantasy VII, Unknown Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So much that the word count practically doubles the fic on its own, and I'm no where near done with the actual chapter, I just decided to split it in three fourths to both further the plot and the actual writing I do on it. Seriously, I've been having spurts of writing one sentence per day and yesterday I just wrote out two entire pages on my own... I terrify myself ha ha.  
> Kyubey is such a dick, and Author-san messed up on his description in earlier chapters, probably got him confused with the seven saints Incubator in terms of looks, but instead of going back and fixing my mistake, I decided to incorporate that into the story ha ha ha. Lets see how it pans out....

     I crack my eyes open to the grungy-colored Inn bedroom ceiling that I’m paying ten gil per night to wake up to... so not worth the price. The logical side of my brain makes a barely noted noise of protest as I realize yet again that I’m not in my bedroom on Earth, but inside a fictional story. With a yawn I look around at the barely furnished room while stretching my arms, noting that Kyubey was nowhere in the immediate area. Which in retrospect was understandable, seeing as how I often kicked him in my sleep for the past two nights here. The room itself holds only three items: a nightstand in the corner, a small bed, and an empty trunk for personal belongings.

     If anything, you can even say that the room’s unoccupied if it weren’t for one object sitting on the nightstand. This object had materialized in my hand when I first transformed into a magical girl yesterday. Just looking at it I couldn’t keep the ear-to-ear grin off my face while ignoring my confusion at the lack of glasses on the nightstand, having used my magic to fix my vision and store my glasses. Well my current expression is to be expected seeing as the object in question is a knife; the primary close-combat weapon that my favorite character used most often in her own story. Even though it’s the furthest thing from a normal knife, with its obsidian blade and grooved handle made of pine wood with a raised, solid gold cover that had horizontal grooves ringed in the gold for better gripping. Within the handle is a hollow area for my Soul Gem, which could be raised through the handle to the surface with a charge of my magic, where it’s imbedded into the gold-plated surface. This didn’t mean I know what my powers are, for that matter I’m still in the dark. Really, I only know what my weapon is when it’s not in the Soul Gem form or the jewel accessory form, which’s a simple ring that had the crystal in a single loop line in the center that went around the band. With my powers unknown, it meant that the reconnaissance I had done after leaving the train all the more important for the time being.

     From my exploration of the sector five train station I found myself in two days ago, I gathered that Midgar had a total of eight publicly known sectors. The map broachers in the wall nearby highlighted what each sector had to generally offer with emphasis on the perks of working in the Upper-Plate Shinra Tower, which was only accessible from that same train station. I had taken three of them just in case I lost one, then ruined the remaining one somehow. Regardless of which sector I visit in my spare time, at the moment I just didn’t have any of that to _actually use_ according to my digital watch I always had on my right wrist, twenty-four/seven. With the same shit-eatting —as a certain snail-carrying pirate would claim — grin on my face, I pick the knife up, watching in awe as it transforms into a ring once again. I twirl it between my fingers before stabbing the air in front of me, the blade’s sheath materializing around the weapon before both fade into unknown hyperspace.

     “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that…” I mutter to myself as I open the door, allowing the green-tinted hazy light to filter across the floor and my shadow.

      “…But, I think I’m starting to get used to this, this whole other world I’ve been shoved into.” I half-heartily grumble as I exit, sliding my empty hand into a pocket of the few pairs of jeans I had with actual functioning pockets. And considering the overall plan I had, what I’m wearing would be the only pair of earth made clothing for quite a while…

       I leave the building and made it down the second-story-to-ground-floor ladder with a single gut-dropping step that somehow, did almost nothing in terms of jarring my legs outside of a small burst of ignorable pain. I wonder if that was due to me resting in a bed with healing bedsheets made out of materials from my current destination, the Sector five chocobo stables, or due to me being a magical girl… Shrugging, I decide it’s probably due to a combination of both, as I had talked with the Innkeeper during breakfast after waking up on the first morning here. He said that the bedsheets healed any injuries to clothing and the sleeper’s body without the cost of magic that casting a mantria would require, thereby attracting more customers to his inn. During today’s breakfast, the old man gave me directions to the chocobo stables.

       My walk to the chocobo stables truly started after ducking into the nearest alleyway to avoid the crowds and potential pickpockets, seeing as how sector five was part of the Midgar slums. Its slow going, as I’m carefully stepping my way around and over piles of sharp-jagged metal mixed with junk, half-rotten crates that filled the alleyway at random spots, and smatters of human waste. It’s when the bigger, tennis-shoe size piles of slightly green sludge that I unfortunately recognize as waaay-too-fresh diarrhea due to the newly released gases from the sudden bubbles that I noped out of there. By which I mean, I leapt onto a nearby rooftop, turned around to peer down at the anomaly from a thought-to-be-safe-distance, and received a audible burst of gross gas for my trouble.

 My. Nose. Burned.

     If I could describe the vilest stench that ever graced my nose, it would be the scent that came in that moment. It was worse than sewer gas in a public restroom, worse than fresh diarrhea, _worse_ than both combined. My dying brain and nose agree on identifying it as _acidic_ due to the pain and corrosive properties of its origin before my stomach made its protest known.

     “Urgh my nose, my nose, my brain and nose are melting…” I groan as I stumble across the rooftop before my stomach decides to empty itself on my only shirt. I wince at the pain as the back of my throat and nose burn from a different kind of acid, the only saving grace of which was the extermination of the original stench.

Dry heaving, I wonder how exactly, this could get any worse.

~$~$~$~

     An overly fat, fluffy tail comes up and snakes its way across my face, an all too familiar pair of crimson eyes with unfamiliar rabbit ears entering my line of sight.

     “Damn it Murphy…” I groan as I slowly stand up and shamble forward out of the puddle of my own vomit, before plopping my butt down on the clean roof. The single-tailed Incubator with four pairs of ears on its head trots forward before sitting down and tilting its head while gazing at me with an unblinking stare.

Wait a minute there…

     I look down at the furball in question, a single word escaping my lips as I reach out to flick one of the rings around its oversized ears, producing a pleasant tone.

“Kyubey…?”

     Its lone tail moves from side to side in a cat-like manner before it replies in a familiar voice within my head.

_Yes?_

I blink at it in confusion before groaning then letting my head rest against the roof with a dull thunk. Ow… The pain helped in clearing my head, and with it as a jumpstart to act, my brain finally makes a decision as to what I need to do.

      “Let’s get away from here.” I grunt while pushing my lazy bum off the ground, deciding to go over the Incubator’s body switching capabilities or hallucinations another day as I wrinkle my nose at the smell of drying vomit. Well, there went any chance of getting a job at the chocobo stables… I blink again, a memory of Sailor Moon’s transformation sequence entering my head, along with a memory of three girls standing on a bridge, one crying over the dead corpse of another as Kyubey watches on. A grin instantly forms on my face as I point at Kyubey with an outstretched arm, words falling out of my mouth too quickly for me to stop and _think_ over what I’m confirming.

     “Kyubey, one of the staples of being a magical girl is the ability to transform, and this body is nothing more than a catalyst for my soul. Is what I said true?”

 _While both are indeed true, its baffles us why you want to clarify what you already know as fact. Hmm? Oh I see, yo_ —”

     I cut him off as a plethora of characters enter the forefront of my mind and leave just as quickly except for three from the same story, _Spice and Wolf_. I remove both of the main characters due to their unwanted personalities for the current task, leaving me with a certain vixen who appears in the anime and has her own short story within the light novel series. I take out my ring and hold it above my head, the Soul Gem materializing over the ring itself with a brilliant pulse of ashy light. I close my eyes, mostly to avoid the weird sight of black particles akin to iron fillings streaming up my legs and chest in a circular motion around my body. The heat coming from my clothes as the magic did its thing I was expecting from my first experience transforming two days ago. The sensation of pins and needles burning into the surface of my skin is different though, ow, ow, ow...

      To distract myself, I focus on what I could recall of the character I’m possibly disguising myself as. A turban-like cowl around a head of short dirty blonde hair, hiding the female vestige underneath, her voice mostly deep enough in tone to pass off as a young man in his late thirties. A traveler’s cloak the green-grey color of dead leaves, white underrobes providing both cover from the elements and pockets for an assortment of goods, money and a lone butcher knife. A pair of steel blue eyes, hard and piercing as the foxish, money-hoarding personality of the person they belong to, an embodiment of the medieval merchant. By then the sensation of ants walking about on my face had ceased, and I open my eyes to what I can tell is a new body.

      The difference I could feel in the weight of the clothing I’m current wearing and beforehand is sublime, the thin yet noticeable difference between the weight of a feather and a sheet of paper. My arms and legs were thicker with muscle if the small bulges are anything to go by, but I didn’t feel any difference in height. I glance at the Incubator and open my mouth to speak, but the words that fall are not entirely my own.

“It would appear that…?! Kyubey, has my voice changed?”

     Kyubey sits and tilts his head upward before replying in a slightly excited voice.

_Telepathically speaking, your voice has not changed, but the physical vocal cords have adjusted along with the rest of your body to your magic. Fascinating…_

     “I’m sure it is…” I turn away from him, and begin walking while dusting off my shoulder, a subtle invite for him to climb on. I pause when I reach the edge of the cleaner alleyway and look back with a tilt of my own head. “You coming?”

     Kyubey bounds forward and leaps up onto the indicated shoulder, his eyes staring across the rooftops around us. _Going by your actions and words after the transformation… it’s almost as if you adopted a different personality, a persona of someone else. This could be useful, very much so in the future._

     I softly snort at his words before replying with words of my own before leaping down and resuming my walk to the chocobo stables.

“That’s to be expected, seeing as how I’m currently the vixen merchant, Fleur ‘Eve’ Bolard.”

~$~$~$~

      The stables and the birds themselves apparently smell like my father’s hair, a pleasant sour smell of Bermuda grass mixed with a faint after scent of citrine. My sandals repeating slaps against the puddles were a small comfort, a good distraction from the possibility of never returning home with my wish. I sigh a bit before shaking my head free of the melancholy that’s clinging like ever-tangling cobwebs and refocusing on what needs to be done. I left after speaking with the stable boy, a teenager who introduced himself as John who then signed me up for afternoon shifts at that particular stable. Apparently, there were stables in each sector, but Sector fives were the largest and constantly hired more workers by default.

     I swiftly settle into a routine over the next week, visiting local bars and restaurants for ‘Eve’s’ delivery service in my spare time; distributing said items at the corresponding places in the morning while simultaneously picking up new jobs and gossip. Around noon I would head over to Seventh Heaven for a bite to eat and drink before going to the chocobo stables for my afternoon job that was almost paying for the rent on its own. Over the course of that time, I learned many things, but the most important of which is that according to Kyubey, seeing as how I’m sustaining my newfound body with proper nutrients and other necessities, the cost of magic to sustain the new body’s transformation is very little, almost nothing. The fact that my Soul Gem has barley darkened over the last week further attests to this.

    “Well, it’s probably best that I try monster hunting tomorrow without using Eve’s persona, just to get used to using magic in my own body.” I halfheartedly mutter to myself as I dispel Eve’s body that I had continuously from a week earlier and thusly termed ‘Bodily Transformation’, with a stretch of my arms.

~$~$~$~

    Killing hodgepies with a two by four plank against the head or stomach of them is easy, it’s the gathering part that often times is messy. Local gossip says that it used to be SOILDERS who did this kind of work, but as I go about removing the back spikes for the butcher on fourth street, I couldn’t quite picture Zack getting his hands covered in green blood while squatting around monster dung. Because that’s how they mark their turf, with big piles of smelly poodoo. _Urgh, it’s a very good thing I had learned how to turn off my nostrils, otherwise I would be unable to handle this_ I think to myself as I move the knife around the spike’s base. It’s then the crunch of footsteps behind me alert me to someone approaching from behind, a blonde woman easily in her teens with her height and black suit.

      “You monster patrolling too?” I ask while holding up the spike I just removed from the pie’s back and wiggling it in her direction.

“Not quite… Does patrolling include mutilating the monster’s bodies like that?”      The stranger replies calmly as she walks up.

     “No, not normally. I’m doing this for a friend as a job. Judging by your clean suit, you work in that Upper Plate Shinra Tower.” I turn towards her with a easy-grin smile as I stow away the spike. The rest of the Hodgepie’s corpse starts to dissolve into green mist with my next words and offering my hand to the stranger.

“So, Ms. Secretary, want to join me on my own monster patrol?”

     The woman nods, and thus I gain a temporary member. She introduces herself to me while cutting down a second hodgepie failing to sneak up on her from behind, with a handshake offer of her own and a “By the way, my name’s Elena. What’s yours Ms. Monster Hunter?”

“My name’s Meredith, oh, Elena huh? That’s a good name, similar to Elen. You have a great name by the way!” I chirp half-shouting, then flip the handle of my knife to hold it in a backhand’s grip for what is, in my own personal opinion, better protection in terms of knife holding stances. Then three more Hodgepies appear from around the corner and we lost ourselves in the fray, cries of pain from us and the monsters rising and falling in a silly symphony. As I wipe my blade on some bricks, I look up and notice the way the light is angling through the holes far above, and double check with the shadows nearby. Sure enough, it’s already past time for me to be leaving my lunch break, my stomach complaining at the lack of food.

“Hey Elena, I think I’m calling it a day.” I call to her, and she looks up in startlement with a trace of fear that vanishes just as quickly. Huh, I must be hallucinating again… She jogs over while pulling out of her pocket what passes for phones here and typing away on the clunky thing, I watch her lips move and hear the words, but they go in one ear and out the other.

“I’m sorry, what? I wasn’t paying attention.” I half complain while taking out my own PHS, thinking maybe _that_ event’s happening and it’s on the news… Elena shakes her head while biting her lips with a thin smile, her button mashing ceases with her words.

“Your number. We’ll add each other to our contact list. By the way—”

I add my number and trade her contact information with my PHS, while looking up from the screen as I hand hers back.

“—have you heard of a merchant by the name of Eve? I’m looking for her with a job in mind.”

My answer is pretty much autopilot, no filter between the words my brain is spewing from my mouth.

“Yeah I know her. We’re pretty much existing in the same space. I mean, with us being roommates and all…” I scratch the back of my head, before swiftly sending Elena’s phone a message with ‘Eve’s’ business contact number.

“There you go. I really have to go, chocobo’s in sector five are getting antsy and lonely without me there, hee heh…”

She nods once, and I leave her without a second thought.

~$~$~$~

      It’s no less than three days later with a confidence boost under my belt and a new friend to go hunting with in my contacts that I see a certain blonde with spikes enter the Seventh Heaven bar. Knowing what would occur, a few days or hours later —I didn’t know the specifics seeing as how I never played the game— but I would be dumb to not recognize the significance of Cloud Strife appearing here. I leave and secretly transform into Eve before going to each bar in the area, starting rumors and trying to warn everyone I could think of the impending plate fall.

     Four days pass in a blur of transforming, begging, crying, coldly bribing, and rushing myself out of breath before my awareness returns as the doors to the leaving sector five train are closing on my foot. The “Ow!” I say is more out of reflex to this situation than any actual pain from my foot, as I step out of the train. The train moves away without me, a familiar bartender’s over-worrying face plastering itself to the rear window as it moves.

“Sorry Horace.” I deadpan as Eve. turning away while tucking a strand of stray hair blowing in my face behind my ear where it belongs. “But this is something only I can do.” Thusly declaring to Murphy to throw everything at me while cackling from his grave, I bound up the stairs exiting the train station and head north, a certain place entering my mind and footfall…

    I reach the playground near the chocobo stables just as the two kids playing around leap off the slide and jog towards me, a woman’s voice behind me most likely belonging to the pair’s parent. And that’s when the distant booms of reactors exploding suddenly come way too close in a single loud ear crushing explosion, as in slow motion, the plate falls above us.


	4. Everything, —yet Nothing— is the Same – FFVII, The Unwelcomed Guest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot of stuff happens in this chapter that pretty much boils down to: I discover what specific story I am in.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own the image or characters mentioned within this fanfiction. The image and Phantom of Inferno characters belong to Nitroplus Co. Ltd. and the two other publishers of the North America version of the DVD game in question, Digiturbo, and Hirameki International Group Inc. Final Fantasy VII elements and characters belong to Square Enix, and other characters and elements belong to their respective owners.  
> IF YOU THINK THE PICTURE LINKED IN THIS CHAPTER SHOULD BE REMOVED; LEAVE A COMMENT FIRST BEFORE REPORTING OR FILING A COMPLAINT WITH THE AO3 ABUSE TEAM! This is so that I, The Author, can Remove the Link without BEING SUSPENDED or flagged by the abuse team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The certain image mentioned in this chapter can be found at the following link.  
> https://i.imgur.com/qyuzsHz.jpg

 I look up, my mind going blank as the plate looms over me and the kids clinging to my legs while screeching in fear, their voices barely audible. Everything goes dim, the cascading crashes of building-covered plate meeting homes, store fronts, and monster areas producing fading echoes in my ears despite occurring right in front of me. I couldn’t move my eyes nor my open, gob-smacked mouth as I watch a good chunk of the area that I had begun to see as a ‘home’ vanish under the falling plate and resulting dust clouds. Trying to think, the only thing my brain sputters out is simple gibberish in Eve’s thought patterns.

No profit to make here, move. Move where? Away?

I glance up again as a shadow passes over, the falling segment above us suddenly much closer as my bowels empty along with the suddenly silent kid’s.

No time to make a profit, no time to escape. No time... I’m going to die here… My life before accepting Kyubey’s contract flashes before my eyes, snippets of time that can never return even with my puella magi powers…

—Standing on the banks of the local lake with my boyfriend, fourth of July and my birthday fireworks going off across the nighttime water... Walking in line down to the cafeteria in elementary school, an open book in my hand while successfully avoiding stepping on other people’s feet, seeing nothing but the adventure in the book I held… Holding the dead body of the family lap dog after the vet put him to sleep for the last time, a year before my adventure started…—

And now, far too abruptly, it would end like this, crushed under rubble. My last words exit my far too dry mouth in my own voice, “Yup, I’m—” as black spots rapidly fill my vision as I exit the physical world.

Only to wake up in a hospital bed feeling fine, like I’d taken a nap or—! I recognize what had —as far as I’m aware— _just happened_ to me, having gone through two cases of partial seizures in my life before this one.

I frown as I remember the first one and subsequent doctor visits, which allowed me to recognize the signs of one coming in addition to the after effects. In my case, the aftereffects is just waking up perfectly fine, none the wiser to my blacking out unless people happen to be witnessing my limbs failing about with me blissfully unaware. From what I can recall, a partial seizure can occur due to elevated stress levels, which means that the plate falling right on top of me and those two kids happened to be the tipping point…

 “I hope three times is the charm for partial seizures, although I honestly doubt it, with my luck so far.” I grumble to myself while shaking my head in self-disgust for my patheticness. I prepare to move out of the bed when one of the machines with a tube trailing from it to one of my arms begins beeping incessantly with the movement. This sudden noise accompanies a prick of pain in my arm, an IV needle hanging halfway out from the initial yank. A nurse bustles in with a look of annoyance as she presses a few buttons on the machine before removing the IV needle entirely while chit-chatting with me as she checking my vitals. Most of her words went in one ear then out the other while she did her thing, but what she says with a flash of worry behind her smile as she finishes up shocks me to my core.

“There you go sweetie. Did you receive any messages from Eve before the Sector Five plate fell a few days ago? Most of the gifts out in the hallway are for her, I hope she’s all right…”

In the time it takes for me to blink at her in confusion, my brain put two and two together. I reply while leaping for the door, my ring pulsing in the harsh hospital light against my… huh, the hospital gown I’m wearing.

“Wait, just wait a minute. There are presents for me, out there? You’re jok —” Skidding to a halt in the hallway, the only thing I can do is stare at the row of presents in a line against the wall. “—not, joking…”

Not quite believing what I’m seeing, I slowly plod forward and toe the nearest paper-wrapped present, which crinkles in response. It’s definitely real, which means that all —I do a quick estimate in my head— thirtyish presents are real as well…

“What the hell did I do to deserve this many…?” I mutter, still in shock from everything; the plate falling, waking up in an unfamiliar building, and now _presents_? It’s a bit much, really.

I promptly sit down with my back against the wall, pull my knees up to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and stare, my mind numb to the events around me. I don’t know how late it was when a nurse brought me back to reality with her question asking if I would need any help getting back to my bed. I shake my head, somehow managing to drag my barely responsive feet to my room and into bed on my own. One thing I am certain of as I begin drifting off to sleep, that the new day will come with new, uncertain surprises… that I’m completely unprepared for. I wake up sometime around noon the next day, the news on the TV in the patient lobby showing the burning remains of sector seven in addition to something I could not recall from any story I knew of. The news reporter gestures behind her, towards a small group of people carrying an assortment of tools moving through the flaming debris with the orange glow of a barrier around them.

“As you can see here Jim, another group of makeshift volunteers from the other sectors continue their search for any survivors. Although hope for finding any who might still be alive grows dimmer with each passing hour, people are still stubbornly searching. In particular, many of these groups are searching for a single person; the missing ‘Wolfish Merchant Eve’, who is cited by many to have warned them of this catastrophe days before it occurred. Her vanishing in the aftermath with her last known sighting being when she left the departing sector five train, —just minutes before the plate fell — has led speculators to believe that she and her hospitalized roommate have ties to the terrorist group that caused this horrible catastrophe. With regards to —”

Ignoring anything else the reporter says, I slowly make my way to a chair, barely noticing the person sitting next to me with her head stuck in a romance book. Eve being suspected as a criminal I was expecting in the back of my mind, given what I know of how Shinra’s current Public Relations operates from various fanfiction. But the real me, Eve’s roommate, a normal girl in every known manner except for being her roommate, being suspected of being a _terrorist_ as well?! I let out a low groan at the dashed prospects of any further usage of Eve and her merchant contacts that I’d made over the two months here; Shinra’s targeting of her destroying my previous source of income.

Well, it’s not like I don’t have an army of other characters I can transform into, but the question is, at what cost, and what are the possible limitations; if any exist? I get up and walk to the in-lobby bathroom to see how much magic I had spent in my outright panic over the past week; the remainder of which I plan to widely gauge against the list of characters I have in mind; most of which are male. And there’s another thing, can I only transform into female characters, or are male characters an option?    Regardless of what character I wanted to transform into, it would cost magic; a cost I might not be able to pay at the moment; because the amount of magic I have left might not be enough… urgh, so many questions that I need answers to; too little time to actually find the answers. In that case; seeing as how the amount of magic required to transform into any character other than Eve is unknown; I need to decide on a near normal character like Eve to lessen the possibility of me turning into a Witch; or worse, be noticed by the Shinra company then killed. I enter the single stall bathroom, lock the door, and check the room’s corners and mirrors for hidden cameras; thankfully there are none to be found. Once my Soul Gem materializes over my ring with the flash of a neon-grey square emblem; I give it a once over in the mirror. It’s a darker shade of gray than it had been when I had first met Elena, the Gem’s color now more akin to clouds heavy with rain than its previous shade of silver-grey.

     I take a breath and exhale it slowly, my heartrate speeding up at I remind myself that yes, overall it is darker, but there are no black spot or areas that require immediate attention with a Grief Seed, which I didn’t have at the moment.

I probably have at least a month and a half if I use my magic wisely and eat well while keeping my emotions in check... I remember how once a magical girl’s Soul Gem becomes completely black the girl will fall into despair, showing a possible correlation between emotions and the state of the gem itself.

 Which means I need to stay calm, and logical, like most of the badass female characters I admire. In other words, first figure out what story I’m in then find a way to protect those that need protecting; and help out in any manner possible; powers or not. A rapid knock on the door tells me that my Soul Gem observation and what little time I had to think about possible applications of my magical abilities— while not drifting off to sleep in bed; as was my habit— is up.

 I open the door to someone who looks familiar; with her mid-length dark brown hair that ended in curls that hung past her eyes in curving bangs. Those same eyes which were a few shades lighter than her hair glare at me in annoyance as I realize that the unknown woman most likely needed to use the bathroom, and that it would be best for me to leave. Squeaking out a mutter of “Sorry.” as I make my way past her; the door closes behind me when I glance at the empty chair with a book sitting in it. I make my way to the hallway and turn around before looking at the bathroom door with a twinge of annoyance at myself and the circumstances surrounding me. The presents still remain sitting against the wall; and I know that Shinra would only need to make the connection before coming to interrogate me. Which means I need to remove the evidence; however trivial the action may seem seeing as how I’m most likely already on their Turk’s lurk and watch list. I walk up and down the hallway; inspecting the presents with a passing stare while forming a list in my head of what each one is from the general shape of the wrapping paper. Most appear to be clothing or books; although there are at least seven presents that are boxes or mobile bottle racks with actual bottles. Those seven and a few of the other presents I take with me into my bedroom; the rest, I inform the nurse as she changes the bedsheets, can be distributed among the other patients anonymously.

 With that particular problem solved for the time being; I look up as the sound of a door opening then closing reaches my ears; the woman from the bathroom entering my line of sight as she sits down in the seat I had vacated and going back to her book. Dutifully shaking my head at her choice of literature, I allow the nurse to leave before closing the bedroom door; deciding to privately open the boxes and bottles to see what the unknown contents are.

I must have dozed off on the floor after carefully removing the wrapping paper then sorting each present into piles going off of the contents; my brain racing to connect the sudden loud crash following a louder shout with what my wide eyes could see as they scan the messy room for immediate trouble. Four racks of unknown potions from the faint glow of the liquid inside the clear vials, two bottles of wine hidden individually inside shoe boxes, a few books strewn about; and two sets of clothing sit undisturbed during my nap are what I see. Which means; that shout and crash must have come from outside my bedroom.

I eye the door, my personal safety warring with the intense desire to go investigate and help whoever happens to be in trouble; a male voice suddenly cussing beyond the closed doorway. The later won the battle going on in my mind, not soon enough for the somehow familiar voice to echo with a groan of pain as another, but less intense sound of something thunking against the floor reaches me. I slowly open the doorway, the loud click of someone else’s door telling me that I’m not the only person disturbed by the unexpected racket. I pause, feet going still as a certain image flashes through my mind.

 I scowl automatically at my favorite character’s painful expression, knowing fully well that the person I might run into now is not _her_ , or anyone from her story. For that matter, the person who cried out a few moments ago is most likely in less pain, feeling _nothing_ in comparison to what she went through over the course of her own story. Which is why I need to react to this lesser pain, here and _now_ , in preparation to how I will react to _her_ in pain, in the future if — no, _when—_ I see her for real.

In the scant moment that I make my vow to myself, the bookworm from before passes me in a hurry towards the sound of resumed cursing further down the hall. I peek my head out the doorway to see in that direction a rather comical sight: a wheelchair on its side; wheels tangling with the sheets wrapped around the cast-trapped leg sticking straight up in the air; a flag or tent to the humane stupidity of its owner. The arms flailing about on the floor beyond the chair pause as she uprights the wheelchair, her voice easily reaching me as I take two determined steps out of my bedroom.

“Hang on, I’ll get you up.”

 I pause again, something about those words and this particular scene niggling me in the back of my head; I know this, from somewhere… what story did this occur in? I notice the metal filing cabinet on its side beyond the wheelchair as the woman uprights it; the action revealing the iconic crimson hairstyle of the casted man in the dim lighting. Releasing a lungful of air I wasn’t aware I’d been holding; I resume my walk forward as the pieces fall into place, not quite believing what I see. The floor could have been sawed out from underneath my feet and I would not notice the act of falling as the bookworm recoils from the man that I know without a doubt is Reno of the Turks. Which means; considering the situational evidence of a cabinet on its side; the woman’s actions and words; and Reno’s position; would place me within the only one story that I know of that fit’s the bill: _The Moss Stomper_ series.

Or does it have a different name? Is Moss Stomper the author? Hrm, I can’t remember… I sigh in mild-annoyance with myself as I run a hand through my hair while watching half-familiar events pan out in front of me. The woman —Tess FitzEvans, I recall— recoils as she finally gets a glimpse of the fallen Turk himself; Reno’s own face going slack-jawed in the process. I tilt my head to the side; mulling over what I should do; or at the very least, what my options are. Well, now that I know what specific story I’m in, I can help out; prevent things from occurring, start a few events here and there; and maybe figure out some of my puella magi powers along the way. Yeah, that’s a good, foolish plan, that only a naïve idiot would do. Too bad I fit that particular bill to a T when it comes to stories. I walk back to my room with a chuckle, Tess’s approaching footfalls behind me and Reno’s shouting telling me that the two of them were done chat-glaring for now. I enter my bedroom intending to transform into a magical girl, pick up my things and escape while I’m still nameless and faceless to the media; but all thoughts of that ground to a halt as I notice I’m not alone. Sitting on my bed with its tail swishing languidly back and forth, is something I had forgotten about with the looming threat of the plate falling and my resulting panic. Swallowing my pounding heart back down my throat, I narrow my eyes at Kyubey who remains silent, strange considering the couple weeks of separation.

“Where the Hel— in Odin’s great arse, have you been?!?” I half-shout at him; remembering a bit too late that the Hell that I know of didn’t exist here; or wasn’t used as a foul word with that wording; maybe, I surely didn’t know. Scowling, I move forward as Kyubey blinks at me while falsely appearing to having just noticed me; as the overfluffed liar often did in canon.

“On the back of a dragon.” It cryptically replies, trotting to then curling up next to my pillow; a single blood-red eye watching me from over its crossed paws. I stare; knowing that his words should mean something, but my tiring brain fails to see the significance of the Incubator’s BS. Guessing that the best course of action is to clean up my presents for a quick escape, I lift my ring hand over my head and transform into my magical girl costume. Like my Soul Gem, my pullea magia costume did not match up with stereotypes of the magical girl genre. The outer layer consists of a simple, no frills, hooded robe that goes down to the top of my ankles, a pair of draw strings hanging from the neck area allow the hood to change in size. Underneath this is an almost-black; but actually is a very dark shade of blue short-sleeved shirt and dark grey pants. Both are visible through the dividing portion that starts a inch or so below the drawstring area before going down the middle of my robe. A single unmoving large pocket with long strands on the outside is located at the waist area on either side of the robe’s dividend; with a third matching pocket often traveling around the robe on its own. A pair of light-grey waterproof, Velcro tennis shoes complete the outfit.

I pick up Kyubey then shove him headfirst into the left pocket; to see if the hyperspace effect I discovered when first transforming still exists. The Incubator’s head fails to reappear in either of the other pockets; which meant that the hyperspace Pocket Dimensions only connected through the moving pocket. An image of my own hand poking out of the right pocket after I thrusted it into the moving pocket —M-Pocket would work for a nickname, I guess— flashes through my head. I grimace at the memory as I remove Kyubey from my pocket then unceremoniously toss him back onto the bed, fur ruffling in all directions as he lands. I begin picking up the potion vials and stuffing almost all of them into the M-pocket, which moves before stopping underneath my right armpit.

“Really?” I deadpan at it, lifting said arm straight up to expose the M-pocket to the wine bottle I had in my left. The M-pocket quivers as I drop the bottle into it before zooming around my back and torso in a downward spiral; finally coming to a stop next to the left pocket while aligning with it. The section where the two pockets met unravels as it weaves itself into the newer large pocket’s walling, expanding the original pocket.

I blink before rubbing my eyes and blink again, nope, larger self-made pocket is still there. Bollocks. Not really wanting to put up with more of my magical girl’s costume’s wackiness, I shove half of my spare clothes, the remaining bottle of wine, every book except for two that seem promising for a late night or morning read, and every scrap of wrapping paper into the pocket. Everything enters the pocket and vanishes; the pocket seemingly empty with the lack of bulging, but I know better.

I begin to read after dispelling my costume; knowing that sleep won’t come with all the thoughts and worries I have whirling about my head. Kyubey on the other hand, manages to fall asleep next to my pillow before making a remark that turns my blood cold.

_It would be best for you to allow me to contract someone over the next couple of weeks and given the state of your Soul Gem; it is only a matter of time before you turn. I have already found several promising candidates within the Midgar area. Of course, I adhered to your demands of ‘not contracting or speaking with anyone other than me while we’re here’; as you stated on the train. I suggest that after visiting each candidate, we decide which will provide us with the greatest gain once contracted, thus allowing you to gain a potential ally in your travels._

I mull over Kyubey’s words for a bit, before shrugging in minor agreement as I could find nothing at fault with his idea with my sleep deprived brain. After reading for a bit more I manage to nod off; the last thing I see is my watch stating the time of three thirty-two in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please Leave a Comment, even if you don't have a A03 account, or are a guest!  
> Edit: By the way, I now have Tumblr! Just search for the tag 'Fic:travelerOfCrazy' or my username; toyu-frey


End file.
